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  1. Hi Mike

    Could you explain Mihalis Angelos in a better way?

    I had trouble understanding what the principle was!

    By the way, your lectures on Contract Law, although too many, are a god-send! Very detailed and easy to understand!

    Avnish

  2. Can you help me where I draw this line between reasonable and unreasonable contemplation?

    It seems hard to see why the carrier of the windmill part SHOULD NOT have known the windmill owner didn’t have a spare part, yet the ship captain SHOULD have known that the price of sugar was decreasing?

    Or are these cases that could have quite easily of gone the other way given a different judge on a different day?

    • You’re probably correct – don’t forget that the cases establish the law so, if the case HAD gone the other way, we would never have heard about it

      Not sure that I could distinguish adequately but I’ll try

      It was normal practice for a windmill owner always to carry a spare and therefore the carrier was perfectly reasonable in his assumption that Hadley was the same as pretty well every other windmill owner. In fact, it would be most unusual for a windmill owner not to have a spare – totally unforeseeable

      Sugar (and any other commodity!) prices rise and fall – that’s normal and the captain should have reasonably anticipated that sugar prices would fluctuate …. because they always do

      What I find interesting about this and similar cases is the question / situation of “What if?” What if the sugar price had risen during the three week delay? Would the captain have been entitled to the amount by which the value of the cargo had increased? I doubt it!

      • Hi Mike,

        I’ve just looked at your lecture and found it interesting that you had the same thought I did!

        It would be so interesting if the price HAD gone up and the captain sued for the extra profit…

        馃榾

  3. Am I right in thinking this is all very based on the particular judge’s opinion?

    Seems quite hard for me decipher the difference between knowing that carrier of the windmill part SHOULD NOT have known the windmill owner didn’t have a spare part, yet the captain of the ship SHOULD have known the price of sugar was decreasing.

    I’m worried that I don’t really know where this line is separating reasonable and unreasonable contemplation.

    Can you help?

    • Lewis, if you for sure want an answer to a question, you need to post it on the Ask the Tutor page – I don’t see all the questions if they’re just posted in comments

      In answer to your uncertainty, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head when you say “based on the particular judge’s opinion”

      Of course, judges are bound by precedent so they don’t have free rein.

      In the two cases, the subject matters were radically different. A mill shaft bears no relationship to a cargo of sugar and so the later judge is clearly able to distinguish the later case on the facts. But, if it’s trade custom to have a spare shaft, how could the carrier have known that this particular mill owner didn’t have one.

      Yet even the most innocent and naive person must surely be aware that the price of commodities fluctuates.

      Does that answer it?

      And please, I future, if you want a response, then post on the Ask the Tutor forum

    • No, there aren’t any! It’s a short chapter, there are 10 or so questions in a revision kit. Read through those questions and their answers three of four times and you have as much as you are likely to need for the F4 exam

  5. hadley baxendale. windmill owner i feel should win. He has paid someone to go immediatley and get part fixed, if that person messes about for 3 weeks I feel damages should be paid. Just because most windmill owners keep a spare part i think is irrelevant. Finding it tough these as often disagree, seems only 20% is black and white and you have a massive middle of 80% grey areas in these when law says something but we can chuck in a golden rule or a mischeif rule if we want but sometimes we dont. Looking forward to using numbers again with clear answers.

  9. Case White V MacGregor seems very unfair. I mean it was an employee who accidentally said “yes” and that too on the phone and more importantly, the owner himself informed the contractor that he’ll not go ahead with this agreement. According to me he has revoked the contract well beforehand and White has not even had the time to even spend anything in terms of materials or labour.These were not taken into consederation by the court? Thank you

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